This invention relates broadly to the art of drawer cabinets and more particularly to the art of drawer cabinets having drawer interlocking mechanisms.
A difficulty with many drawer cabinets, such as filing cabinets, is that when more than one of their drawers is withdrawn at a time, they cannot support the combined weights of these drawers and they tend to fall over forwards. This problem is especially present with insulated, lateral filing cabinets which have unusually heavy drawers due to insulation and which normally provide less support than other filing cabinets because they lack depth.
This problem can be solved by attaching filing cabinets to floors or walls by means of fastening devices such as nails, screws, bolts or the like. However, such a solution makes filing cabinets difficult to install or move to new positions, and tends to damage the floors and walls.
Another solution is to add weight to the backings of filing cabinets to offset drawer weight; however, such a solution makes filing cabinets heavier and, therefore, more expensive to ship and handle. It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a drawer cabinet anti-tip safety device which does not make cabinets unduly difficult or costly to install or to move.
It has been suggested to limit the withdrawal of drawers from a cabinet by attaching a single tether to back ends of the drawers. The tether has sufficient slack to allow only one drawer to be completely withdrawn from the cabinet at a time. This system has the disadvantage, however, of not being sufficiently positive in action to prevent partial withdrawal of more than one drawer at a time. Further, such a tether tends to impede drawer motion and the slack thereof is cumbersome to store. Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a drawer cabinet anti-tip safety device which allows appreciable withdrawal of only one drawer at a time, which does not impede drawer motion and which is compact in size.
A drawer cabinet anti-tip device should be relatively uncomplicated in structure and inexpensive to manufacture and install. It is an object of this invention to provide such a drawer cabinet anti-tip device.